Journal # 9 Corksrew Swamp

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. In the club house I found in eye opening when I looked at the chart of Florida showing the historical flow of the everglades compared to the flow today. Some of the things that stood out to me was the fact that the Calossahatchee was never connected to Lake Okeechobee until the early 1900s. Historically the river had a system of waterfalls, but these were dynamited and replaced with levies and weirs to help with flood control. These unique systems of waterfalls would have been an amazing point of eco-tourism if they still existed today. The over all “sheet flow” of the Everglades ecosystem was also drastically altered with the creation of highways and canal systems that criss-cross the flowing river of grass. When we walked out to the boardwalk I enjoyed observing the transition of ecosystems as we moved from a slightly higher elevation to a lower one. We began walking in the pine flatwood where fire plays an important part in keeping the ecosystem healthy. The Slash Pine’s were so adapted to living in a fire prone area that they have actually developed fire retardant bark and pine cones that only burst to release their seeds when heated by flame. This system was dominated by an understory of saw palmetto and grasses and Slash Pines spread throughout. The next ecosystem type was an ecotone between the Flatwood and the Cypress Swamp, it was the wet marsh. This area was dominated by sawgrass and was wet for most parts of the year. There was not many birds because of the wet winter which prevented them from nesting in the area. The final ecosystem we came to was the Cypress Swamp. This was home to the extremely rare and valuable ghost orchid. The orchid is in bloom in only certain parts of the year for a short period of time. In the cypress dome we say lichens, epiphytes, Red Shouldered Hawks with their chicks, alligators, turtles, anhingas, and many other birds. It was a nice to see such a healthy environment so close to home. I look forward to visiting the area again this summer.